Members James May Posted April 26, 2017 Members Share Posted April 26, 2017 Hi folks,After introducing our prototype model over a year ago, we went back to the drawing board to make it easier to use and more affordable. We succeeded with those tasks and are now shipping the newly designed product. There's an active discussion going on at Acoustic Guitar Forum, but I thought I'd put in a mention here. Besides live performance, it is also useful in the studio for recording with no mic in ensemble situations, and for post processing tracks that were DI'd from a piezo pickup. Summary:ToneDexter restores the rich body tone of your acoustic instrument to the pickup using proprietary digital signal processing technology combined with a pristine analog signal path. We have created a way to learn the difference between the sound coming from the pickup and the sound coming from a microphone placed in front of the instrument, and use that information to create a transformation we call a WaveMap. Think of it as charting a course from point A to point B. When you first get your ToneDexter, you do a one-time training session with both a mic and the pickup plugged in simultaneously. This way, ToneDexter can listen to both signals simultaneously and learn the difference between the two. By playing for about a minute or two, ToneDexter figures out how to simultaneously correct for the pickup’s deficiencies and restore the missing body tone to the pickup signal, and creates a WaveMap. With a simple press of a button, ToneDexter stores that WaveMap in one of the eleven available preset locations. You can then put the microphone away and enjoy beautiful, lifelike sounds from your guitar, violin, mandolin, or other acoustic instrument. www.audiosprockets.com for more info Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members philboking Posted April 27, 2017 Members Share Posted April 27, 2017 This is actually a pretty cool idea as applied to instruments. Something similar is done in microwave power amps - there is a measurement made at the output of what the actual signal is, then a computation is made to synthesize a waveform which is added to the input signal to compensate for the signal degradation in the power amp. Ironically, they call it 'predistortion'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Anderton Posted April 27, 2017 Members Share Posted April 27, 2017 Hi James, thanks for the update...I was wondering what happened with ToneDexter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members James May Posted April 27, 2017 Author Members Share Posted April 27, 2017 Hi James' date=' thanks for the update...I was wondering what happened with ToneDexter. [/quote'] A lot of folks were wondering. It was a classic case of "back to the drawing board" in order to get the cost down, and also make it easier to use. Results are even better than the prototype model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mats Nermark Posted April 28, 2017 Members Share Posted April 28, 2017 Check it out in this year's Hall E Crawl from NAMM where there's an interview with James himself. Cheers, Mats N Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted April 28, 2017 Members Share Posted April 28, 2017 Waiting on the $100 Open Micro Dexter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members James May Posted April 29, 2017 Author Members Share Posted April 29, 2017 Waiting on the $100 Open Micro Dexter. Can you elaborate on exactly what that would be or do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted April 29, 2017 Members Share Posted April 29, 2017 Can you elaborate on exactly what that would be or do? More a comment on the state of amateur open mics. No audio tech; marginal, even portable PA etc... It would be a bare bones direct box for one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mats Nermark Posted April 29, 2017 Members Share Posted April 29, 2017 For me the MicroDexter would be a small pedal able to play profiles made by others or AudioSprocket. Cheers, Mats N Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted April 29, 2017 Members Share Posted April 29, 2017 better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted April 29, 2017 CMS Author Share Posted April 29, 2017 Hi James' date=' thanks for the update...I was wondering what happened with ToneDexter. [/quote'] You should have read my NAMM show report. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted April 29, 2017 CMS Author Share Posted April 29, 2017 For me the MicroDexter would be a small pedal able to play profiles made by others or AudioSprocket. This isn't like amplifier profiles or reverberant space profiles. The ToneDexter profile is unique to your guitar. Using someone's profile of his Martin wouldn't make your Taylor (or probably not even your Martin) sound like his. What might be useful is to have a computer application to create a profile, then have a small pedal to which you could download a couple of different profiles (mostly as an excuse to have a pedal at all) so you could emulate a few different mic positions for different songs. I recognize that there would be a certain degree of uncertainty since the ToneDexter has a fixed signal path for the microphone and guitar pickup whereas with a computer-based system it would be listening through whatever interface hardware the user owned. But most modern computer audio interfaces are pretty good these days, and just about everybody who does home recording has at least a 2 channel interface with a decent mic preamp and DI. Just send the royalty checks to http://paypal.me/MikeRivers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mats Nermark Posted April 30, 2017 Members Share Posted April 30, 2017 Using someone's profile of his Martin wouldn't make your Taylor (or probably not even your Martin) sound like his. But it still may sound very good. Or at least better than the result I get without the MicroDexter. Cheers, Mats N Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author MikeRivers Posted April 30, 2017 CMS Author Share Posted April 30, 2017 Fishman has something similar in concept, the Aurora or something like that. It comes with several factory presets with generically named guitar models, and you can buy others, though there's no provision for creating your own preset to match your guitar with a microphone. I suspect that most modern factory made guitars come off the line sounding close enough alike so that a single processing model can be applied to any guitar of that make and model and give you a predictable sound. The few times that I've encountered one of those rigs, it's usually been in the hands of a player who doesn't understand it and hasn't listened critically to their instrument when it's running through the processor. They usually just pick the preset that most closely matches the description of their guitar. I usually don't care for what comes out, but I can sometimes understand why they chose to make it sound like that. Not only do they assume that all guitars of a certain type go in sounding about the same, they also assume that everybody is playing the same kind of music. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mats Nermark Posted May 1, 2017 Members Share Posted May 1, 2017 Fishman has something similar in concept, the Aurora or something like that. It comes with several factory presets with generically named guitar models, and you can buy others, though there's no provision for creating your own preset to match your guitar with a microphone. I suspect that most modern factory made guitars come off the line sounding close enough alike so that a single processing model can be applied to any guitar of that make and model and give you a predictable sound. The few times that I've encountered one of those rigs, it's usually been in the hands of a player who doesn't understand it and hasn't listened critically to their instrument when it's running through the processor. They usually just pick the preset that most closely matches the description of their guitar. I usually don't care for what comes out, but I can sometimes understand why they chose to make it sound like that. Not only do they assume that all guitars of a certain type go in sounding about the same, they also assume that everybody is playing the same kind of music. Yes, I have the Fishman Aura, but I will make very sure that I listen to what comes out of it. :-) Cheers, Mats N Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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